A few weeks ago, the diff failed in the gearbox of our 3 year old VW Golf (an import) which caused a hole in the gearbox casing - we were left with a huge bill for a new gearbox and a new clutch - we're currently corresponding with VW, but so far no joy, but we'll keep battling on. The car had only done 29,440 miles at the time - VW say that the fault developed now, we say it was a manufacturing fault
Has anyone else heard of this happening?
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This sort of major mechanical failure should never happen on such a young car IMHO, but it seems distressingly common (recent threads on turbodiesel Renaults and Peugeots for instance). If VW had any sense, they'd give you a new gearbox just so that they could take the old one to bits and find out what happened to it.
Richard Hall
bangernomics.tripod.com
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Why should VW bother?;people still queue up to buy them!!
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And Peugeot and Renault and Citroen!!
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Because sooner or later, if VW do not correct design or manufacturing faults, the public will not queue.
Richard is exactly right, they would pay the proce of a new 'box so they could strip the old one to find, and prevent in futire, the fault.
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I work in a VW Dealers & this is not an unknown problem,it can affect Golfs & Jettas from Mark 2 onwards. VW will not be interested as the car is an import and any goodwill will have to be funded by VW UK, they would have to fund this themselves, and since they have had no revenue from the original sale they are unlikely to want to fork out any money.
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Mark:
Are you able to give any more details on the specific fault that causes these failures?
Andy
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Usually diff bearings fail and punch a hole through the casing.Have seen a few that have obviously been caused by driver abuse:full throttle & drop clutch or banging between 1st & reverse gears when doing donuts to impress baseball cap brigade.Bearing failure seems to affect any age/mileage/model/engine type.
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my gearbox and clutch failed at 10,000miles on a 1998 mk4 tdi if its not covered under a vw warrenty you can forget it
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If only everything in life was as reliable as a ........huh! HJ, what's happened to the old bomb proof build quality of VW then? Is this the Skoda effect? Only joking all you Skoda owners.
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Can I ask what the symptoms were?
I brought my MK4 1.6 SE in 1998. I had it lowered by 40mm. The CV joints went at 30,000 miles and then again a few weeks ago the passenger side CV joint went at 65,000 miles. I had it changed, but when cornering above 30mph or going round bends, only right hand, (it doesn?t happen when turning left) or when the car went over a dip in the road and bottomed out the car would vibrate.
It feels like it?s coming from the passenger side and gets worse when you speed up round right hand bends. I then changed the drive flange, didn?t work. Then put the standard suspension back on, the vibration wasn?t as violent, but still there.
One garage said it was the diff bearings. I took it to VW and they diagnosed it as the passenger drive side drive shaft. I?ve had it replaced but no luck. VW now say it?s the driver side drive shaft but they are only 90% sure it will cure it. If that doesn?t work they say it?s a gearbox strip. Feels like I?m just throwing money at it at the mo. Don?t want to waste any more money replacing parts that don?t need replacing.
Also I think there is a very faint constant whining sound.
Can anyone help or recommend what might be the problem?
It?s booked in for Monday 2nd December 2002 can anyone help before then?
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What happened on my friends mk2 golf gti was the diff rivets broke this caused the diff to eat its way through the gearbox casing! When we took it off and replaced it(a few months ago) there was a nice big hole in it , and all the oil had leaked out over the clutch. I am told this is common on mk2 golfs but not sure about later models. If this is the case it probably was knackered from factory as it usually takes a while for damage to be done.
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I have just had this same thing happen on a Golf that has done 32,000 miles. VW are also trying to wriggle out of it. Did you have a warranty? Was the car from new or second hand?
Best,
Don Whiteford (UK)
Tel 01925 256403
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Mine went after 39,000 on a MkIV. It was just over 12 months old and was covered by warranty. No quibbles what-so-ever. That was 3 years ago.
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Golfless Don: As so many others are reporting similar problems, try telling VW about these other incidents and/or also WRITE to HJ if you want his personal attention (his e-mail contact link is at the top-left).
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Where's Sean?
Sean is THE VW guru - normally gearbox lasts the life of the car unless you do ridiculous mileage, unless you have a Fiat Uno turbo.
This would appear to too common a failure, I don't think that too many BR folk do donuts or drop the clutch at 5k.
Diff appears to be the problem, I'm wondering if this is common to all Golf's or is it diesels which put out more torque that are affected more?
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Yes been here myself. VW took the box out and used a gearbox specialist to identify the fault and fix it. It was his opinion that the preload on the diff must have been set to high at manufacture as the measured load was to high even after 10's of thousand of miles. This caused premature failure of both main diff bearing. He also commented that he had a spate of these same problems. I paid for the box VW paid the labour
Regards
Peter
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Looking at HJ's car-by-car guide "what's bad" on Golfs IVs
www.honestjohn.co.uk/index.php?url=/carbycar/index...m
I cannot see myself ever thinking about buying a mark IV Golf.
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Sean might still be in shock after I told him how much I had to pay for work on my Bentley.
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wasn't this the ECU that was faulty?
Not much chance of getting one in a breakers - I hope your
summer hols were already paid!
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Thanks to this and other VW forums I was able to give my father sufficient clout to go back to his local dealer and stand his ground.
His gearbox went, same stuff, diff rivets gave way, only he was driving with my 23month old daughter in the back, and it went bang going up a steep hill. VW of course were not interested, and were going to charge him £2k for a recon box - car just out of warranty. He asked about goodwill, but they couldn't give a monkeys.
I did some research, and lo and behold there is a pattern, a deffo design fault - far too many failures to be a coincidence.
He went back and told them where to go, and he'd start writing to watchdog etc if something was not done....
....VW suddenly managed to offer to pay 70% of the cost. how funny???
So, if this happens to you - STICK TO YOUR GUNS, don't take no for an answer.
Hope this helps someone else out there, like this forum helped me help my father.
Cheers
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This type of failure is all too common on VW transmissions and is, I believe caused by the fixing of the diff "crown" wheel to the carrier with rivets rather than bolts. The problem with using rivets here is that when fixing hardened components, it's very hard indeed to determine the pre-load (stretch) on the rivets, so there is virtually no margin between the thing being either loose or over-stressed. After a few thousand miles and a bit of thermal cycling, the inevitable will happen to a few transmissions, with destructive results.
Most other manufacturers use high strength steel bolts in this position (two of which may have extended noses to locate the bevel gears' axle) which can be torqued or angle tightened to give a closely determined pre-load.
The screw thread really was a splendid invention.
659.
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